A month before the Harahan City Council is set to impose restrictions on what can be built on the city's largest green space, members grilled an attorney for the land's owners on the specifications of their agreement. Councilwoman Cindy Murray questioned whether the development agreement for the former Colonial Golf and Country Club raised any significant restrictions, or would effectively force developers to comply with it at all.

Mayor Vinny Mosca called for the agreement Nov. 21 after the council voted
3-2 to set off 15 acres of the 88-acre tract and rezone it for commercial use.
That resolved Harahan's longest-running and most divisive political
issue of the past decade, and pushed it into the next chapter: the issue of what can be built on the land.

Written by the council members with Mosca, the agreement is set for a voted in March. It would prohibit what could be built on the former course, would determine the schedule of construction, and would lay out how the development will meet traffic and drainage concerns. The agreement describes what will be built on the course: a retail strip, with no multi-family housing units, surrounded by land devoted to mitigating drainage issues. If owners John Georges and Wayne Ducote, of J.W. Colonial Group, do not comply by the terms of the agreement, they would risk losing $500,000 and having building permits revoked.

Attorney Jack Capella, who represents J.W. Colonial Group, spoke to the council to answer questions a month ahead of their vote.

Murray, who voted against the land's rezoning, questioned how useful the agreement is. She said that what the agreement appears to hold the land's owners to terms that were already in Harahan's law. "Most of what they're saying they're going to do is by law for us anyway," she said.

Murray also asked whether the mechanism to hold the owners accountable was effective, and if the owners would actually be forced to pay $500,000 if they did not follow the agreement. She noted that rather than give the city a bond for that amount, J.W. Colonial Group had presented a letter of credit -- showing that they hold $500,000. "It doesn't bond the city for anything," she said. "A letter of credit is not a legal bond."

Councilman Lawrence Landry said the bond and the letter of credit were similar mechanisms. "I think his intentions were -- 'Look, I have the money.'"

Murray said that whatever Georges and Ducote's intentions, they had promised to provide a bond with the agreement at the council's vote on the land's rezoning. "The promise was not lived up to - that was my point," she said.

Murray also questioned how a 15-acre area set aside for drainage would be maintained. Would the city have to pay to care for it? Capella said that the land's owners would care for the drainage ponds, and that due to the terms of the agreement, nothing would ever be built on that 15-acres. He said that he did not yet know what the 15-acre drainage ponds would look like -- as those designs would come from drainage engineers, and would then be approved by the council.

Capella said that the development agreement is fluid, and the council members who wrote it can also add to it. "Consider it a living, moving document. You all may decide there are things you would like to add or subtract. There may be contingencies we are not thinking of at this point," he said.

Mosca took advantage of the moment to offer his suggestion: could the development include "a bronze caricature of elderly Mayor Ferrara with a bronze fedora."

Carlo Ferrara, in the audience, chuckled.

Capella's presentation ended on a bittersweet note. He said that with the development agreement presentation, the land's owners had finished their role in the project. Next, developers and architects and engineers would come before council. "After tonight I feel like the gun's shot and we're ready to go," Capella said.

Though he has faced a barrage of questioning for over a year at many council meetings, Capella did not express relief. "It has been a little slice of heaven being with you all," he said.